ms. pixel bailey exists within the community of Second Life and is a new media artist examining sexuality and identity in online communities and social networking environments.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

it is not your imagination

I was reading the 2nd Sex Blog by Lillie Yifu and she mentions this posting by Slate talking about infidelity in Second Life.

Lillie's discussed this in her blog post, but I wanted to add my own spin on this as well.

Newsflash here peeps.. Second Life is not the only place where people are being unfaithful. This has been happening for many, many years in online communities. Since those first days of AOL, since bulletin boards and all those games of L.O.R.D. when people started sleeping with the barmaid to earn points, since IRC and chatrooms, and match.com people have been cheating with others, experimenting, and learning more about themselves.

So, let's not blame Second Life. If there's blame to be placed here, then let's blame technology for connecting us with people all over the world that we would never have met without the internet. Let's blame technology for giving us new and exciting ways to learn about sex, and sexual satisfaction. Let's blame technology for allowing us to rethink our perspectives and experiment with our sexuality.

I think it's fantastic that we have these outlets. I don't think it's a bad thing that people are meeting other people and having sex online. I firmly believe that if someone is completely and truly content in their relationships, they won't leave simply because the Gods of technology have placed a gorgeous avatar on their screen who's willing to suck their dick as often and as hard as they want it sucked.

I also think that having these outlets that allow us to experiment and explore our sexuality is a *good* thing. For the life of me I will never understand why people think that being curious, experimenting and learning more about their sexual preferences is a bad thing. It's a GREAT thing. We should be counting our lucky stars that we have the ability to learn and experiment in this environment. No one's getting pregnant, catching an STD or dying from AIDS because they experimented with sex in a virtual environment.

If people are being unfaithful in their first relationships because of someone they met online, then there's more at issue here than an 'imaginary girlfriend' and don't even get me STARTED on whether or not these online relationships are real. They *are* real. There are real feelings, real people, and real passion involved. If you're losing your loved one to someone they met online, then it's time to take a step back, evaluate your relationship and make some hard choices.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Even if technology offers what it offers nowadays, there is no reason to accept an offer we don't want to receive. Meaning, infidelity, sex, and all that can be "offered" in so many ways!! Gosh! Do we accept all "offers" people give us? Why do people accept offers they don't want? So, I guess we shouldn't be blaming technology for infidelity, for instance. Because it offers, but anybody can refuse, right?Why not take one's responsability for our own actions? Blaming others or even technology takes away responsability off our shoulders.

If sex were offered to me (and you can think of offering, for ex, a candy, I wouldn't accept it, cause I don't like sugar), I surely wouldn't accept sex, just because it was an "offer".

There is a very nice word, that people should use more often: NO.

What I see in our society is a very clear extreme hunger for sex; completely unhealthy (guess what, I'm no puritan!!!). Before even technologies like the net arrived to our society, men did go to hookers for sex. Now, that "hunger" is clearer to our eyes, because of this "connection" worldwide - the net.

So, technology is only to blame for showing the world, the entire world, what is "rotten" inside some human beings. When it comes to sex, wow, they are too too many!!!

I completely agree with some of your points in that no one is forcing these offers of sex on us and we do have the ability to say 'no' if we choose.

I do not, however, believe that it's all about what's 'rotten' inside us. I think that sex is prevalent in online communities not because people are starved for sex, but because they're starved for attention. They need someone to listen to them, and tell them they're special. They're dying for someone to treat them as though they were the most amazing person on earth.

I also tend to disagree that a hunger for sex is completely unhealthy. I think it's a perfectly natural and good thing, but because our society puts such a negative spin on being sexual, we start to look at it as a bad thing when in fact, it's the complete opposite.